This invention relates generally to vehicle tire identification. More particularly, the invention provides a method and apparatus for encoding tire identifying data on a specially prepared tire builder's tag, applying the tag to the sidewall of a green tire, and reading out such encoded data at various stages in the tire manufacturing process to facilitate product quality assurance and inventory control.
Many varied techniques have been applied to tire identification and the success, or lack thereof, is evidenced by the absence of a workable method in the art. For example, these prior techniques included (a) sensing and reading impression codes molded into the elastomer of the tire sidewall surface as exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,159, (b) embedding discrete magnetic bits into the tire elastomer as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,810, (c) mixing magnetizable material in the rubber as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,750,120 and (d) magnetically encoding the tire bead wires as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,920,674. Obviously these techniques involve changes to an already complex manufacturing process while also increasing the cost of a highly competitive product.
In this respect, therefore, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for tire identification that least effects the tire manufacturing process and/or the quality characteristics of the product. This is accomplished in the provision of a specially prepared magnetically encodable tag to replace the presently used tire builder's tag. The encodable tags are supplied in a tape format and encoded sequentially with tire identifying data by magnetic write apparatus.
Upon being applied to the sidewall surface of a green tire the tag is read by magnetic read apparatus and the resultant signals, indicative of the tire identification data, are used to present a visual readout of the data and/or fed to a computer for manufacturing process quality assurance and inventory control.